Learning to Fall
by bangag pa
Summary: Sometimes annoyance could really lead to attraction or just basically a frustrated way to tell someone you like them. There really is a thin line between love and hate. Its not pure hatred, it was just an excuse. One-shot


**Title: Learning to Fall**

_Summary: Sometimes annoyance could really lead to attraction or just basically a frustrated way to tell someone you like them. There really is a thin line between love and hate. Its not pure hatred, it was just an excuse._

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Just another typical afternoon at the Academy, students running around the corridors, teachers giving detentions left and right, whereas at the college of medicine a brooding assistant-teacher was having a death march to one of the many laboratories in the building. He's not really a pessimist though these last few months tested his stretch of patience.

The one year temp has just got his promotion to a permanent teacher in the veterinary department. Even this accomplishment did a little to improve his mood as he brace himself for the regular banter he was going to have once he reach the veterinary research lab.

"Where's the blackmailing ice queen? Did the world suddenly stand still that she's thirty minutes late in torturing every single person that crosses her path?" The blond professor sarcastically let out as he enters the surprisingly empty lab.

"Didn't you know that she just left ten minutes ago?" A curly haired colleague suddenly pops her head out from the apparently half-open refrigerator in the back corner. Another assistant-teacher, Koko walks out the side door of another room in the lab and grabs a vial on the desk near his now bewildered friend. "She completed her research and will be going to another university the day after tomorrow."

_**Today is the day**_

_**The worst day of my life**_

Head still in the refrigerator his colleague amusedly teased, "You didn't think that she'll be staying here permanently did you?"

"Yeah but?" Still confused and tongue-tied, he couldn't even form a complete sentence.

Koko pours the content of the vial into another as he watched his friend's reaction. "Apparently, it's her last day today. She won't be coming back tomorrow to finish her contract."

"She… what?" The newly advanced professor gaped and ran out of the room hoping against hope that he will be able to catch up with the notorious lab researcher.

The curly girl named, Sumire, closed the refrigerator as she had found the flask she's been looking for and turns to asked something in return. "Hey, aren't you…" But was surprised to find herself talking to air. She again turned to ask her boyfriend instead. "Where's Ruka?"

Koko just snicker in amusement as to what his long-time friend is going through. "Where else?"

His girlfriend eyed him in confusion, "I thought he loathe her and would be glad that she's finally gone?" Sumire pour the contents of her flask to a dish and examine it under the microscope then signals her boyfriend to come and take a look at it.

"Are you blind?" Koko adjust the knobs as he also peers in the scope. "The fool's head over heels with the ice queen."

_**You're so content it hurts me**_

_**I don't know why**_

_**The cost of misery**_

_**Is at an all time high**_

_**I keep it hidden**_

_**Close to the surface in sight**_

"_Who gave you the right to dispose these samples?" Ruka glowered at the stoic girl in front of him. "It took me months to collect these samples and to just be disposed of by the new girl on her first day." Still not getting any sort of reaction with the newbie, Ruka continued his banter. "I haven't even finished half of them!"_

"_If you only labeled those containers I wouldn't have mistaken them for trash as they really are." The amethyst haired girl emotionally voiced out. "They're too rotten to conduct any beneficial test on them anyway. You haven't even had the decency to store them properly to preserve their essence."_

"_What gives you the right to lecture me on how to do things?" Exasperated for the first time in his life, Ruka fight for control of his emotions not to shove the girl out the window. "Show me you're professional license before you criticize my methods._

"_I would have but it wouldn't be until the day after tomorrow." The girl quietly arranged the vials she's been examining before the mad man stormed up to her. "The machines that print out the license id are in repair."_

"_Yo-you're not an intern?"_

_The girl didn't utter any sort of reply at his question. It was natural for one to put behind their first impression on a person for it usually alters once you've got the chance to know the person better. But for this two was the one of the few exceptions. After that unfortunate event, the two colleagues never have been seen eye to eye. The newbie researcher, Hotaru Imai would always found ways to irritate, manipulate, and push the limit of everyone specifically her first nemesis on her first day, Ruka Nogi. Constant misunderstandings, unnecessary bickering and blackmails were the usual tension between these two. _

"_You just did not…" Ruka open jawed stare at her as he frantically threw the stolen shots his sworn enemy had and was about to auction on the web._

_Hotaru calmly collected the scattered pictures and resume her advertisement drafts. "Well it was high time for you to compensate the inconvenience you brought whenever you're around me."_

"_What the hell—" This girl just really brings out the worse in him every single time._

_**I'm learning to fall**_

_**I can't hardly breathe**_

_**When I'm going down don't worry about me**_

_**Don't try this at home**_

_**You said you don't see**_

_**I don't want to know that you know, it should have been me**_

Having those errant recollections plagued him suddenly made him more desperate to catch her. Ruka sprinted down the corridors to the staircases, trying to just even have a glimpse of her. "Where could she be?"

As he turns another corner, another bunch of rampant thoughts crossed his mind. _She can't possibly leave in my behalf she's too proud for that. Damn should be more patient with her. But it's too hard to be nice to that witch. No, just shit._

Unfortunately for him, the girl he was chasing wasn't too fond to be caught by him and hid behind a pillar. Hotaru then went to the opposite direction even if it would take her longer to get to the parking lot.

Once she got inside her car, she breathe a sigh of relief and drove like there's no tomorrow. She groans in annoyance as she remembers to pick up someone stupid on the other side of the school.

_**Could you be with him?**_

_**Or was it just a lie?**_

_**He doesn't catch you like I do**_

_**And you don't know why**_

_**You change your clothes and your hair**_

_**But I can't change your mind**_

_**Oh, I'm uninvited**_

_**So unrequited now**_

Ruka roamed around the campus in his car, convince that she wasn't in any building or facility but still somewhere in the campus area itself. He finally spotted her car in the parking lot near the high school basket ball court. In sheer desperation, he frantically looks for a parking spot, got out of his car and ran with all his might to the covered court.

His heart leaped out its cage as he spotted her talking with the same guy he always seen her with. But that's not what took his attention completely. It was the unusual way she held her self: her now casual and sporty attire, a tank top with a denim faded Capri paired up with a light blue sneakers, face free from the professional make up it was usually adorned and hair loosen up from its common bun.

In the months that he had spent with her, this was the only time he'd seen her, this loose and casual. She seem somewhat a normal yuppie would look like and not a hard-ass blackmailer she had always been.

_**I'm learning to fall**_

_**I can't hardly breathe**_

_**When I'm going down don't worry about me**_

_**Don't try this at home**_

_**You said you don't see**_

_**I don't want to know that you know, it should have been me**_

Her twin brother was again roughly playing basketball with his colleagues and his juniors from college. It's not that she despise the sport, it's the company he's brother always have. Some blatantly flirt with her while others silently stare.

One could not help but feel uncomfortable with these creepy and beyond border stalkerish attention. Hotaru then decided to approach his brother and tell him that she'll just wait for him in the car.

His brother chuckles on her predicament and told her that he'll be done in ten minutes. "I'm just going to take a quick shower in the locker room and get my stuff there."

She sucker punches her brother in his arm and scowled, "Prick, if you didn't wreck your car I wouldn't be in this shit." That earn her a louder laughter from her twin while ardent reception from her admirers.

_**Words screaming in my head**_

_**Why did you leave?**_

_**And I can't stop dreaming**_

_**Watching you and him**_

_**When it should have been**_

_**It should have been me**_

Shaking his head from the trance he got of her new look, Ruka shifts his attention to the guy she was associating with. He has seen the guy for several times with her. But didn't have the courage to ask who he is so he just assumed that was his boyfriend. "But who the heck is he?"

Just as he was about to approach them and finally asked who the guy is to her, Hotaru sucker-punch the black-haired guy and left him behind to go to the parking lot. Ruka followed her now with renewed determination in his system.

Hotaru settle on writing another report as she kills time. After five minutes, a tap was heard on the passenger side. Without confirming who it was, she click open the master lock system of her car letting in the impatient man.

"What the hell you said ten minutes it's barely five and what's with the tapping? You, trying to dent my car to get in?" She yelled at her brother but was caught back when the person she was trying to avoid sent daggers at her.

_**Today is the day**_

_**The worst day of my life**_

Hotaru attempts to shove him out of her car as Ruka fight his way in and asked the question he's been dying to inquire. "What do you think you're doing?"

"The hell you question me? What I do is none of your business. Get out of my car!"

Ruka stood his ground and stubbornly held onto the seat. "Not until you tell me why you're leaving without telling me?"

"Who do you think you are? Why would I need to explain anything to a jerk like you?" She scoffed; giving up with the idea of pushing him physically she should come up with another way fast. "Shouldn't you be glad that I'm leaving?"

"No."

"What the—"

"No, I'm not glad." Ruka suddenly shifts from his seat and slowly close the gap between them, staring intently at her. "Because I haven't done this." Ruka reached for the locking mechanism of the car to seal them from further distraction then kissed her hard for her to get his point.

Ruka stops his ministrations to say something. "I'm…"

"Just shut up." And Hotaru grabbed his collar and sealed his lips with hers to silence him this time and answer his hesitations.

_**I'm learning to fall**_

_**I can't hardly breathe**_

_**When I'm going down don't worry about me**_

_**Don't try this at home**_

_**You said you don't see**_

_**I don't want to know that you know, it should have been me**_

"Oi! Get your hands off my sister!" Natsume sneered while banging vigorously at the window but the couple inside was extremely busy in their own world. A hand grabbed him suddenly, twirled him around and was drag away. "Just give your sister a break will you. I'll drive you home instead."

"Only if you kiss me."

His nosy colleague, Mikan, offhandedly replied. "In your dreams."

Natsume wittingly retorted as he was forced by the auburn haired girl away from his sister while loving every second of it in her presence. "Oh we already did and something more."

"You… Pervert!"

The end.

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Disclaimer: The title and lyrics are from the song of Boys like girls' Learning to fall. Thanks for reading!

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, and PMs and for adding this story in their favorite and alert lists: sa-ta-yu-chi-chan, youare-who-youare and .Sympho.

February 25, 2010 bangag_pa


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